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Friday, January 1, 2010

Often for New Year's, people make long list of resolutions about things that they hope to change about themselves. I've found that that simply doesn't work for me. It's too much, one or two things that I really want to consentrate on are more reasonable, so I picked the top two for me...

1. Accept and ASK for help when needed. I'm bad at accepting help, and absolutely HORRIBLE at asing for help. It seems sometimes that I will watch myself drown before I ever ask for help. I am even bad sometimes at asking Hubby to help me. I expect him to help, but don't always tell him what I need help with. Then I get upset that he hasn't helped. This has to stop! Now that Little One is here, I have to realize that I simply CAN'T do it all myself.

I will be returning to work soon and this has to continue there too. I had a co-worker my first year teaching who was supposed to be my mentor. The problem was, I never asked him for anything so he never knew what I needed help with. He didn't know what I needed and I didn't know what I didn't know. It made for some disasterous paperwork I'm sure. His biggest advice then was that I needed to ask for help, I didn't listen. That was 10 years ago! Better late than never I suppose.

The Plan: Simply put, acknowledge when I am starting to get in over my head...or even when I just could use a little help... and decide on the best person who could help and ask. Also, accecpt whatever help is offered when it is offered so that I can focus my energies where they need to be.

2. Get back in shape to run another marathon in 2011. Yes, I know that getting in shape is the #1 resolution each year, but this is a bit more focused and narrowed down. Yes, I want to get in shape and look better for my self esteem, but more importantly, I want to get back into running with Team in Training and raising money for Leukemia and Lymphoma Society in honor of my dad and brother. So far I've raised nearly $10,000 during the 4 seasons I completed with them, I'd like to continue and raise even more! Why wait until 2011 to train for another marathon? Simple...training for a full is a big commitment. Long Saturday runs, numerous shorter weekly runs as well as cross training days, watching everything you put in your mouth, etc. etc. etc. My primary focus this year is my daughter. I don't want to focus more on my running than on her. With breastfeeding, it is difficult to be gone for hours at a time without nursing or pumping so I will wait until next year when I'm not nursing anymore to do another full.

The Plan: To start with, I'm going to be redoing the C25K...also known as the Couch to 5K plan. I have an app on my iPhone that allows me to play any playlist on my iPod that I want to run to, but will give me a tone to know when to run and when to walk based on what day I'm on. There are several local 5Ks and 10Ks that I want to sign up for. Once I'm up to running 3 miles without dieing again, I plan to use the Jeff Galloway method of 4:1's to train for a 1/2 marathon. I want to run the Nike Women's Virtual 1/2 Marathon in October, and a local 1/2 in November. At that point I should be in fine position to train for a full marathon starting in 2011.

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There were a few resolutions I considered but decided against for one reason or another:

*Continue to breastfeed at least through next summer (10 months old). I decided not to use this one because I know it is a cop-out resolution as it is something that I am going to do for as long as I can anyway. Breastmilk is the best thing for my daughter so I know that I will do this for her without having to make a resolution. (The reason I chose 10 months - or more specifically through next summer- is so that I don't have to pump next year at work. Hopefully at the point that next school year starts, I will have enough stored milk that I can nurse when I get home, use the frozen, and supplement with more solid foods and/or formula... that's the plan right now anyway)

*Lose the baby weight. I figured this one was kind of redundant with the goal that I chose so I dismissed it. If I get in good enough shape to run a marathon again, then I won't need to worry so much about the baby fat!